It’s the End of the World As We Know It

The Rapture spoken of in the New Testament will take place this weekend. Massive earthquakes will rock the planet and all human life will be thrown into chaos. Millions will die immediately as those who follow Christ will be caught up with him to escape the earthly devastation.

Camping is the 89-year-old founder of Family Radio and a self-proclaimed prophet who first predicted the end of the world in September 1994, and even wrote a book about it. When the end didn’t happen then, he returned to rigorous study of the Bible and now says he has a complete understanding of the exact timing of Judgment Day: May 21, 2011 at 6 pm.

Some of his followers have sold their possessions, burned through their savings, and are wrapping up their lives in preparation for exiting the world this weekend after being caught up with Christ. Camping himself is simply staying busy giving interviews, producing his radio programs, and running routine ministry business. Neither Camping nor his followers entertain the idea that the prediction may not come to pass. It will most definitely happen, they say.

Of course, Camping is the latest in a long line of homegrown American doomsday prophets. We’ve had a steady stream of them since the beginning of the country.

I’ll leave it to my biblical scholar colleagues to determine whether or not Camping’s predictions are true to the texts, or if they are consistent in any way with Christian teaching about the end of times. My own view is that we’ll probably still be here on Sunday with a world coherent enough to do whatever it is that we all normally do on Sundays.

Camping’s predictions offer a lesson, however, if we’re willing to learn it. The fact is that, for some people, life as they know it will indeed end this weekend. A loved one will die. A terminal diagnosis will come from the doctors. An accident will happen and nothing will be the same ever again. Death will come suddenly and unexpectedly for some people.

If we all lived conscious of the fact that the present moment is all we’re guaranteed in this life, I suspect we’d live differently. We’d stop wasting time. We’d give up stupid grudges. We’d get our priorities straight. We’d cut the crap from our lives.

Camping may be dead wrong on Judgment Day. But, he’s right in suggesting that none of us have the time we think we have on this planet. And if we are wise, we will live our lives with urgent intention.

26 Responses

I admire the idea of living every moment as if it were your last, but the reality is that is impossible. As my Buddhist friends might say, “Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water.” They understand that mindfulness is often just as important as the dishes and, while tragedy and predictions of doom are good reminders to increase our own mindfulness of the everyday, somebody still has to do the laundry.

Jeff – I think the philosophy “live each moment as if it were your last” means “don’t throw away the moment, expecting to have time later to recover – or make amends.” Certainly someone has to do the laundry (and all the other maudlin’ everyday tasks) – but I know many people who act like complete jerks, and say “it’s OK, I’ll make up for it next week/month/year.” Interestingly, SciGuy has a blog post about a company who offers a test to tell you how long you have to live. My fear: I would find out I have 50 more years, then be so happy I would forget to look both ways before crossing the street, and get run over by a bus.

Ed, even if you find out that, genetically, you have the potential to live another 50 years, there are still diseases, accidents, and malice by others that science cannot predict and that can all take you out at any moment.
Hence, being mindful, present, and complete to the moment is always a Good Idea.

Thanks, Dr. Jill, for reminding us that it is important to live life, now. This fits well with your other work on “Stop the Crap” and provides a moment of pause in the hurly-burly of our daily existence. Your are correct that the world as we know it can end in a moment’s flash as we hear about the death of a loved-one, the diagnosis of terminal illness, or other such shocks. As i approach my 69th year, I hope that I am conscious of the fact that “living leads surely to dying” and that I am living my life in compassion for others. Thanks for a great post. Waiting without anxiety for the weekend.

Jill as an expert you should know that according to scripture there is at least 1007 years until the end of the world. There is a 7 year tribulation and then 1000 years of the rule of Christ before then end will come. The rapture has nothing to do with any end of the world. The rapture is the removing of the church.
As for camping he will again be seen for what he is. A false prophet.

The word rapture is not even in the Bible. Most people find that jaw dropping. What people believe with respect to religion and specifically the end of the world is an amazing phenomenon. In a world where infinite resources are a keyboard away, lots (if not most) people form their beliefs from what they have heard.

Be that from a preacher or a trusted friend. What’s even more amazing is the fervor of emotions to protect what is not really known. Best summed up by a line from the King and I “…and though a man may be uncertain of what he absolutley knows. very often will he fight to prove that what he does not know is so!”

my message to people is this: set aside personal bias and prepare yourself to know the truth. i often ask myself and others do you want to be right or do you want to know right?

Maybe we would live differently. Maybe we wouldn’t live in a culture that imprisons people at a never before seen rate for personal choices, produces over a quarter of the world’s pollution, accepts a “world-class” murder rate, allows the systematic degradation of education systems, and spends your tax dollars to improve the quality of our instruments of mass death…But we are creatures of habit, and control.

It is indeed a good day to stop messing around. I would challenge you to not simply leave the thoughts of this to your Biblical scholar friends. But in fact, read about the truth of it all. I say this all with the utmost respect and with no harm towards you. But it seems a shame that you have figured it out to stop wasting time, when in fact, you just might be doing that. I hope and pray that you would truly understand the magnitude of your own words and revelations today. Take care.

There are more than enough challenges in our daily lives–happy, hopeful, anxious & sad–to keep us fully occupied and busy. Betting on the end of the world is just wasted energy. We can’t do anything to hasten or delay that time.

However, I noticed that the local city-sponsored shred-a-thon here in East TN is scheduled for Saturday. Maybe to coincide with the end of the world & Second Coming of Jesus? One last chance to shred your past & enter the New Jerusalem without baggage & evidence of your mistakes?

By the way… Remember that of the two absolutes in life (Death & Taxes), the Rapture only takes care of one (Death)… At the Day of Reckoning, you’ll still be required to pay your taxes. (You can look it up: “Render unto Ceasar” is still in force!)

I’ll have none of it! But just to make sure I’ll be fishing at six on Saturday, so if thats my time to finish life , I will be doing something that I love, reading a book and waiting on the fish to bite.

Exactly, Ms Carroll. You’re “dead right”. The Son of God (like the end of the world for each and every one of us, in other words, Death) will come like a “thief in the night”. We know neither the day nor the hour. What is important is to live each day as if the morrow were the end.

And has Camping sold all of “his” possessions as well? I’ll bet he hasn’t. Instead, how much money has he taken in? I wonder if he can be sued for breach of promise. For at least some people the world as they know it will indeed end when they find themselves homeless and hungry on the following Sunday. Indeed, is is time to stop messing around with other peoples lives.

Speaking of which, we are all here in one piece with regards to your post and Camping’s predictions.

In fact, on Saturday, the tennis courts were full of people of all faiths, it seemed no one knew or cared about it or maybe we wanted to go out enjoying the thing we all liked to do.

It is a given, the end of the world will come one day as believed by all people of faith in God, the Almighty Creator. Majority of the believers, as did the Prophets who were sent to us, say that only God has the knowledge of when that will occur.

Signs leading up to it have been foretold, but are vague in nature, open to interprettation. But just knowing that the end is imminent, the action item for us is to live a life of righteoustness. One can have a good life here as well as in the hereafter.

Good to have you back Jill, however I did not expect you to start with this topic, it could have been a more cheerful one.

The poor reverend forgot the next line of the song … “And I feel fine.” We are all still here, searching for the perfect moment. Children live in sync with time instinctively. Adults lose that ability. We do have our little distractions to keep us entertained, but more often than not they are poor substitutes for those moments sublime. Toward that end, perhaps we should quit pondering the unknowable and pretending to be able to make sense of old words written by men from the dawn of metaphysics who knew virtually nothing of the world that we know, and probably not as much as some who preceded them in their own (in Greece and other learning centers). One can have faith in a power beyond our own without paying much heed to mystical notions and a confused assemblage of lessons in quasi-history. The noble principles of love, honor and service embodied therein are not enough for many, who demand their individual “salvation.” The young child believes in the tooth fairy because of what seems, to him, empirical evidence. Adults, some of them, believe in the coming “rapture” in spite of the absence of evidence or even coherent explanation. They say it’s a matter of faith. The child, too, has faith, a faith redeemed in the moment of awakening and the discovery of cash or coin where had rested a superfluous tooth. Methinks the child has it right. He knows what he knows and exults, however briefly, in the instant of hope fulfilled. Perhaps we would move closer to his world, to the sublime and satisfying, if we sought to serve each other more, to be the answer instead of demanding one.